Iona

A Celtic cross on Iona

This page has not been updated since June 2014.

The Iona Community in Scotland is an ecumenical Christian pilgrimage destination. Iona is the site of a Christian monastery established by St Columba in 563 when he arrived from Ireland to this small Hebridean island.

The Iona monks established a Celtic-influenced Christian culture through the production of beautifully illustrated texts and distinctively Celtic carvings including ‘high’ crosses. Pilgrims come to the island to visit the mediaeval Iona Abbey with its ancient graveyard where many Scottish kings are buried.

The Abbey is now an ecumenical Christian church having been rebuilt in the 1930s by a group of ministers and working men from Glasgow. This group established the Iona Community , now a world-wide organisation but with a principal centre on the island offering meditative retreats for Christian pilgrims.

More than a quarter of a million day visitors come to the island of Iona each year, many of them walking around the island to sacred, historial sites.

Iona now hopes to introduce recycling, improve its waste disposal and look at alternative sources of energy.